Study of Thousands of Brains Reveals Tau as Driver of Alzheimer’s Disease

In findings recently published in the journal Brain, researchers from Mayo Clinic revealed that, by examining more than 3,600 postmortem brains, the progression of the dysfunctional tau protein drives the cognitive decline and memory loss seen in Alzheimer’s disease. Amyloid, the other toxic protein that characterizes Alzheimer’s disease, builds up as dementia progression, but is not the primary culprit, according to researchers. During the study, researchers were able to simultaneously look at the evolution of amyloid and tau using neuropathologic measures. “Imagine looking at the rings of a tree — you can identify patterns, like the changing seasons and the aging of the tree, when viewing the tree’s cross-section,” the study’s lead author said. “Studying brains at different stages of Alzheimer’s gives us a perspective of the cognitive impact of a wide range of both amyloid and tau severity, and we were very fortunate to have the resource of the Mayo brain bank, in which thousands of people donated their postmortem brains, that have allowed us to understand the changes in tau and amyloid that occur over time.” To read more about this study, click here.